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Vjenceslav Richter Museum, Zagreb, Croatia, 2017

This piece is entirely about Nada Kareš-Richter (1926–2015). I do not know a great deal about Nada, but I felt an extraordinary connection to her while visiting her home at Vrhovec 38 in Zagreb, in the summer of 2017. She lived in the building with her husband, Vjenceslav Richter, from 1964 until 2002, when he died. For nine more years she lived there alone, until she left the house for hospital in 2011, and died four years after that.

I went up the narrow wooden stairs, and the moment I stepped into the living room on the second floor I met a powerful wave of energy coming from the space. Everything on that floor has been carefully preserved exactly as it was when she left. I was amazed at how strongly I could feel Nada and Vjenceslav still receiving their visitors. I began looking closely at the objects lying about, and it was then that I sensed Nada’s gentle touch in every small detail of that beautiful, warm room — her heart in the decoration and the care of a house her husband had designed.

Looking around, I went into the bedroom, and there I felt her lonely years in the house after Vjenceslav’s death. The air was heavy, and yet something in the room invited me to stay, so I did. I sat on a stool in front of her mirror, which stood on a modest wooden chest with nine drawers. I went through the drawers one by one and saw Nada’s life laid out in the objects arranged inside them. What moved me most was that I could guess how those objects had been rearranged after her husband’s death — I recognised it from what has been happening in my family’s house since my father died.

Although our visit to the building was meant to teach us about Vjenceslav Richter’s achievements in art and architecture, it was Nada’s presence that held me. I wanted to do something with that feeling, so I made an Instagram account for Nada and shared a hundred photographs of the objects in those nine drawers. I hope she is happy with the idea.